Hayek Program Podcast

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Bobbi Herzberg delivers a keynote lecture at the 2025 Markets & Society conference on Vincent Ostrom’s understanding of democracy and self-governance. Reflecting on Ostrom’s life, scholarship, and enduring influence, Herzberg explores four central themes in his work: the emergence of social order through shared beliefs and norms, the capacity of individuals to govern themselves, the importance of polycentric systems of governance, and the fragility of democratic institutions. Drawing on Ostrom’s collaborations with his wife, Elinor Ostrom, and his engagement with the writings of Alexis de Tocqueville, Herzberg argues that democracy is not a mechanism imposed from above but an ongoing practice of cooperation, deliberation, and mutual responsibility. She concludes by emphasizing Ostrom’s vision of democracy as a living experiment in self-government that must be renewed and sustained by each generation.
Dr. Roberta Herzberg is a Distinguished Senior Fellow and a Senior Research Fellow with the F.A. Hayek Program for Advanced Study in Philosophy, Politics, and Economics at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute.
**This episode was recorded on October 17, 2025**
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Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
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CC Music: Twisterium

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Emily Chamlee-Wright delivers a keynote lecture at the 2025 Markets & Society conference on the precarious state of liberalism and the cultural foundations necessary to sustain a free society. Drawing on the cultural economy framework she developed with Virgil Storr, Chamlee-Wright argues that liberalism faces not only overt constitutional threats but a deeper "soft tissue" problem: the erosion of the values, norms, and habits that make formal institutions work. Once degraded, she warns, no legislative remedy can restore them.
She walks through four dimensions of this cultural ecosystem, shared mental models, generalized norms, cultural tools, and social networks, and shows how they can either reinforce liberal resilience or spiral into vicious cycles of decay. She closes with an urgent call to action: liberal intellectuals and scholars must boldly deploy the cultural tools at their disposal, the stories, symbols, and founding ideals of a free society to decisively reverse the illiberal drift before it becomes irreversible.
Dr. Emily Chamlee-Wright is a senior affiliated scholar and Board Member at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. She is the President and CEO of the Institute for Humane Studies and the author of numerous books, including The Cultural Foundations of Economic Development (Routledge 1997) and Culture and Enterprise (Routledge 2000), co-authored with the late Don Lavoie.
**This episode was recorded October 19, 2025**
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium

Welcome to our new series, The Hayekian Triangle. This series will feature a range of conversations between our hosts: Virgil Storr, Chris Coyne, and Peter Boettke.
On this episode, the three sit down to mark the 250th anniversary of Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations — and to ask a deceptively simple question: why are we still reading a book written a quarter-millennium ago?
From the invisible hand to the division of labor, Smith's ideas have become so embedded in how we think about markets and society that it's easy to forget just how radical they originally were. Virgil, Chris, and Pete dig into what Smith actually said, why the standard takes on laissez-faire and self-interest so often miss the mark, and what a Scottish moral philosopher writing in 1776 still has to teach us about wealth, poverty, and the institutions that make human flourishing possible.
Whether you're coming to Smith for the first time or returning to him with fresh eyes, this conversation is a reminder that the greatest works in political economy aren't monuments to be admired from a distance — they remain living inputs into the science of today.
**This episode was recorded on April 3, 2026**
Show Notes:
Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations (Liberty Fund, 1982)
Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments (Liberty Fund, 1982)
Kenneth Boulding, "After Samuelson, Who Needs Adam Smith?" (History of Political Economy, 1971)
Kenneth Boulding, "Economics as a Moral Science" (The American Economic Review, 1969)
Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (Penguin Press, 2019)
Raghuram Rajan, The Third Pillar: How Markets and the State Leave the Community Behind (Penguin Press, 2019)
Deirdre McCloskey, The Bourgeois Virtues: Ethics for an Age of Commerce; Bourgeois Dignity: Why Economics Can't Explain the Modern World; Bourgeois Equality: How Ideas, Not Capital or Institutions, Enriched the World (University of Chicago Press, 2006, 2010, 2016)
Martha Nussbaum, The Cosmopolitan Tradition: A Noble but Flawed Ideal (Belknap Press/Harvard University Press, 2019)
Ludwig von Mises, “Why Read Adam Smith Today?” (FEE, 2015)
Richard Ebeling, "Celebrating Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations at 250 Years" (Future of Freedom, 2026)
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke and Liya Palagashvili reflect on her journey from undergraduate student organizer to public intellectual, policy analyst, and Director of the Labor Policy Project. They discuss how Liya has approached her career with a startup mindset — exploring her work on the gig economy and portable benefits to create more dynamic and resilient labor markets. Along the way, they reflect on the importance of mentorship, “failing fast,” and the tension between holding a strong vision while remaining open to new evidence.
Dr. Liya Palagashvili is a Senior Research Fellow and Director of the Labor Policy Project at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and an alum of the Mercatus PhD Fellowship. Her research focuses on labor regulations, the gig economy, and the changing nature of work. She regularly writes for her Substack, Labor Market Matters.
**This episode was recorded on March 31, 2026**
Show Notes:
Mary Catherine Bateson, Composing a Life (Grove Press, 2001)
Casey B. Mulligan, The Redistribution Recession: How Labor Market Distortions Contracted the Economy (Oxford University Press, 2014)
Edited by Richard A. Epstein, Mario J. Rizzo, and Liya Palagashvili, The Routledge Handbook of Classical Liberalism (Routledge, 2026)
Angela Duckworth, Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance (Scribner, 2016)
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If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium

On this episode of the Hayek Program Podcast, Peter Boettke talks with Bill Easterly about his new book, Violent Saviors: The West’s Conquest of the Rest. Drawing on figures such as Adam Smith, P.T. Bauer, and Amartya Sen, Easterly argues that material progress alone cannot justify the denial of human dignity and consent. The conversation explores the idea of the “benevolent autocrat” and examines how both colonialism and modern development policy have too often treated people as objects of improvement rather than agents of their own lives. Along the way, Boettke and Easterly discuss state capacity, slavery, colonialism, migration, and post-communist transitions, making the case that freedom is not just a means to development but an end in itself.
Dr. William Easterly is Professor Emeritus of Economics at New York University and Co-director Emeritus of the NYU Development Research Institute. He is the author of numerous books, including The Tyranny of Experts: Economists, Dictators, and the Forgotten Rights of the Poor (Basic Books, 2014), The White Man’s Burden: Why the West’s Efforts to Aid the Rest Have Done So Much Ill and So Little Good (Penguin Books, 2006), and The Elusive Quest for Growth: Economists’ Adventures and Misadventures in the Tropics (MIT Press, 2001).
**This episode was recorded on February 2, 2026**
Show Notes:
Acemoglu and Robinson, The Narrow Corridor: States, Societies, and the Fate of Liberty (Penguin Books, 2020)
Amartya Sen, Development As Freedom (Vintage, 2000)
David Colander, Why aren't Economists as Important as Garbagemen? (Routledge, 1991)
Matt Kibbe, Don't Hurt People and Don't Take Their Stuff: A Libertarian Manifesto (HarperCollins, 2015)
If you like the show, please subscribe, leave a 5-star review, and tell others about the show! We're available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, and wherever you get your podcasts.
Check out our other podcast from the Hayek Program! Virtual Sentiments is a podcast in which political theorist Kristen Collins interviews scholars and practitioners grappling with pressing problems in political economy with an eye to the past. Subscribe today!
Follow the Hayek Program on Twitter: @HayekProgram
Follow the Mercatus Center on Twitter: @mercatus
CC Music: Twisterium